Legends of Homestead Caches, Indian Mines and Loot From Civil War Raids

by W. C. Jameson

The Appalachian Mountains have seen untold fortunes gained and lost. The confluences and clashes of cultures - Indians, Spanish, French, pioneer, Union and Confederate forces - produced struggles over wealth, and gold and silver were often cached for later retrieval. Jameson gathered the book's material from historic journals, maps, on-site research in the mountains, and interviews with people whose lives have been entwined with the legends about and the searches for these fabulous lost treasures.

A cedar chest that had been packed with gold coins robbed from a bank just south of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1860, was recovered 50 years later by a fishing guide in King's Mill Pond. Only a handful of coins were left in the chest, which had mostly rotted away. Is the rest settled beneath the silt of the pond today?